'Lord' in the Bible

In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the children of Israel in accordance with all that the Lord had commanded him to say to them,

“The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, ‘You have stayed long enough on this mountain.

Look, I have set the land before you; go in and take possession of the land which the Lord swore (solemnly promised) to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them.’

The Lord your God has multiplied you, and look, today you are as numerous as the stars of heaven.

May the Lord, the God of your fathers, add to you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, just as He has promised you!

“Then we set out from Horeb (Sinai), and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, just as the Lord our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.

And I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill country of the Amorites which the Lord our God is about to give us.

Behold, the Lord your God has set the land before you; go up and take possession of it, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’

Then they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they reported back to us, and said, ‘It is a good land which the Lord our God is about to give us.’

“Yet you were not willing to go up [to take possession of it], but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.

You murmured and were ill-tempered (discontented) in your tents, and said, ‘Because the Lord hates us He has brought us from the land of Egypt to hand us over to the Amorites to destroy us.

The Lord your God who goes before you will fight for you Himself, just as He did for you in Egypt before your [very] eyes,

and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried and protected you, just as a man carries his son, all along the way which you traveled until you arrived at this place.’

Yet in spite of this word, you did not trust [that is, confidently rely on and believe] the Lord your God,

“And the Lord heard the sound of your words, and He was angry and took an oath, saying,

except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land on which he has walked, because he has followed the Lord completely [and remained true to Him].’

The Lord was angry with me also because of you, saying, ‘Not even you shall enter Canaan.

“Then you answered and said to me, ‘We have sinned against the Lord. We will go up and fight, just as the Lord our God has commanded us.’ So you equipped every man with weapons of war, and regarded it as easy to go up into the hill country.

But the Lord said to me, ‘Say to them, “Do not go up and do not fight, for I am not among you [because of your rebellion]; otherwise you will be [badly] defeated by your enemies.”’

So I spoke to you, but you would not listen. Instead you rebelled against the command of the Lord, and acted presumptuously and went up into the hill country.

And you returned and wept before the Lord; but the Lord would not listen to your voice nor pay attention to you.

“Then we turned and set out for the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea, just as the Lord had told me; and we circled Mount Seir for many days.

And the Lord spoke to me, saying,

For the Lord your God has blessed you in all that you have done; He has known about your wanderings through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.”’

And the Lord said to me, ‘Do not harass [the descendants of] Moab, nor provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession, because I have given Ar to the sons (Moab and Ammon) of Lot as a possession.’

The Horites also used to live in Seir, but the sons of Esau dispossessed them. They destroyed them from before them and settled in their place, just as Israel did in the land which the Lord gave them as their possession.)

Now thirty-eight years passed from the time we left Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley, until that entire generation of the men of war had died from within the camp, just as the Lord had sworn to them.

Moreover the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from within the camp, until they were all dead.

that the Lord spoke to me, saying,

a great, numerous people, and tall as the Anakim, but the Lord destroyed them before the sons of Ammon. And they dispossessed them and settled in their place,

just as the sons of Esau, who live in Seir, and the Moabites, who live in Ar, did for me, until I cross the Jordan into the land which the Lord our God is giving us.’

But Sihon king of Heshbon was not willing for us to travel through his land; for the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, in order to hand him over to you, as he is today.

The Lord said to me, ‘Look, I have begun to hand over to you Sihon and his land. Begin! Take possession [of it], so that you may possess his land.’

So the Lord our God handed him over to us [and gave us the victory], and we defeated him and his sons and all his people.

From Aroer, which is on the edge of the Arnon Valley, and from the city which is in the valley, as far as Gilead, there was no city [whose wall was] too high and too strong for us; the Lord our God handed over everything to us.

Only you did not go near the land of the sons of Ammon, all along the river Jabbok and the cities of the hill country, and wherever the Lord our God had forbidden us.

And the Lord said to me, ‘Do not fear him, for I have handed him over to you, him and all his people and his land; and you shall do to him just as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.’

So the Lord our God also handed over Og king of Bashan, and all his people, into our hand and we struck him until no survivor was left.

“Then I commanded you [Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh] at that time, saying, ‘The Lord your God has given you this land to possess; all you who are brave men shall cross over [the Jordan] armed before your brothers, the sons of Israel.

until the Lord gives rest to your fellow countrymen as [He has] to you, and they also possess the land which the Lord your God has given them beyond the Jordan. Then each of you may return to the land (possession) which I have given to you.’

I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, ‘Your eyes have seen everything that the Lord your God has done to these two kings [Sihon and Og]; so the Lord shall do the same to all the kingdoms into which you are about to cross.

Do not fear them, for it is the Lord your God who is fighting for you.’

“Then I pleaded with the Lord at that time [for His favor], saying,

‘O Lord God, You have only begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand; for what god is there in heaven or on earth that can do such works and mighty acts (miracles) as Yours?

But the Lord was angry with me because of you [and your rebellion at Meribah], and would not listen to me; and the Lord said to me, ‘Enough! Speak to Me no longer about this matter.

“Now, O Israel, listen and pay attention to the statutes and the judgments (God’s legal decisions) which I am teaching you to do, so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I am commanding you.

Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal-peor; for all the men who followed [and participated in the worship of] Baal of Peor, the Lord your God destroyed them from among you,

but you who held tightly to the Lord your God are alive today, every one of you.

“Look, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God has commanded me, so that you may do them in the land which you are entering to possess.

For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God [is to us] whenever we call on Him?

especially the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb (Mount Sinai), when the Lord said to me, ‘Assemble the people to Me and I will let them hear My words, so that they may learn to fear Me [with awe-filled reverence and profound respect] all the days they live on the land, and so that they may teach their children.’

Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of the words, but you saw no form—there was only a voice.

The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you the statutes and judgments, so that you might do them in the land which you are going over to possess.

“So pay attention and watch yourselves carefully—for you did not see any form [of God] on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire—

And beware that you do not raise your eyes toward heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and let yourselves be led astray and worship them and serve them, [mere created bodies] which the Lord your God has allotted to [serve and benefit] all the peoples under the whole heaven.

But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron [smelting] furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people for His own possession, as [you are] this day.

“Now the Lord was angry with me [at the waters of Meribah] because of you, and He swore [an oath] that I would not cross the Jordan, and that I would not enter the good land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

So be on your guard and watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He has made with you, and make for yourselves a carved or sculpted image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you.

For the Lord your God is a consuming fire; He is a jealous (impassioned) God [demanding what is rightfully and uniquely His].

“When you become the father of children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, then if you corrupt yourselves by making a carved or sculpted image in the form of anything [for the purpose of worship], and do evil [things] in the sight of the Lord your God, provoking Him to anger,

The Lord will scatter and disperse you among the peoples (pagan nations), and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord drives you.

But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.

When you are in distress and tribulation and all these things come on you, in the latter days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice.

For the Lord your God is a merciful and compassionate God; He will not fail you, nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.

Or has any [man-made] god ever tried to go and take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your [very] eyes?

It was shown to you so that you might have [personal] knowledge and comprehend that the Lord is God; there is no other besides Him.

Therefore know and understand today, and take it to your heart, that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on the earth below; there is no other.

So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am commanding you today, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and so that you may live long on the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”

The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.

The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, all of us who are alive here today.

The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain from the midst of the fire.

I was standing between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain. He said,

‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous (impassioned) God [demanding what is rightfully and uniquely mine], visiting (avenging) the iniquity (sin, guilt) of the fathers on the children [that is, calling the children to account for the sins of their fathers], to the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,

‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain [that is, irreverently, in false affirmations or in ways that impugn the character of God]; for the Lord will not hold guiltless nor leave unpunished the one who takes His name in vain [disregarding its reverence and its power].

‘Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy (set apart, dedicated to God), as the Lord your God commanded you.

but the seventh day is a Sabbath [a day of rest dedicated] to the Lord your God; on that day you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock or the stranger who stays inside your [city] gates, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

You shall remember [with thoughtful concern] that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

‘Honor (respect, obey, care for) your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that your days [on the earth] may be prolonged and so that it may go well with you in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

“The Lord spoke these words with a great voice to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, and He added no more. He wrote these commandments on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.

and you said, ‘Behold, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he [still] lives.

Now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, then we will die.

You, Moses, go near and listen to everything that the Lord our God says; then speak to us everything that the Lord our God speaks to you, and we will listen and do it.’

“The Lord heard your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me, ‘I have heard the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have done well in all that they have spoken.

Therefore you shall pay attention and be careful to do just as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right or to the left [deviating from My commandments].

You shall walk [that is, live each and every day] in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long in the land which you will possess.

“Now this is the command; the statutes and the judgments (precepts) which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, so that you might do (follow, obey) them in the land which you are crossing over [the Jordan] to possess,

so that you and your son and your grandson may fear and worship the Lord your God [with awe-filled reverence and profound respect], to keep [and actively do] all His statutes and His commandments which I am commanding you, all the days of your life, so that your days may be prolonged.

Therefore listen, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly [in numbers], as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one [the only God]!

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and with all your soul and with all your strength [your entire being].

“Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which He swore (solemnly promised) to [give] your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to give you, [a land with] great and splendid cities which you did not build,

then beware that you do not forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

You shall fear [only] the Lord your God; and you shall serve Him [with awe-filled reverence and profound respect] and swear [oaths] by His name [alone].

for the Lord your God who is among you is a jealous (impassioned) God [demanding what is rightfully and uniquely His]—otherwise the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled and burn against you, and He will destroy you from the face of the earth.

“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested Him at Massah.

You shall diligently keep [foremost in your thoughts and actively do] the commandments of the Lord your God, and His testimonies and His statutes which He has commanded you.

You shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, so that it may be well with you and that you may go in and possess the good land which the Lord swore to [give] your fathers,

by driving out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has spoken.